Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Removing ShKit Root Kit


From: Gino Thomas <g.thomas () nux-acid org>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2003 21:36:39 +0100

Brian Eckman <eckman () umn edu> wrote:
What is a secure environment? If it was a secure environment, the 
machine would not have been compromised. Period.

As we all know nothing is 100% secure, so it can be compromised if
in a high secure environment or not.

That might be a threat for those still running Office 97 or earlier. 
Unless it's a signed macro from a trusted source. Unless I'm missing 
something, Macros haven't been much of a threat since Office 2000 came 
out (That was roughly four years ago if you aren't counting).

That was one of a million possible ways for the attacker to modify
any data to become malicious in a way or two.

Regardless, is anyone reading Microsoft Word docs using Microsoft Office 
on a system that is *that* critical that you absolutely cannot risk it 
getting compromised again regardless of cost? If so, perhaps you need to 
keep that machine off of a network.

If the compromised box was for example a FTP-Server holding many .doc,
.mped, .avi,... files? The attacker could made the trojan general, so
any workstation that will execute any of the "backup" files could get
compromised.

For example, if it would take hundreds of hours to check the integrity 
of all of the data or recreate it, that had better be one mission 
critical database we're talking about, or else anybody in their right 
mind won't think twice about accepting the risk of copying that data 
back where it came from. Security isn't always ideal circumstances. Your 
company still needs to make a profit.

I agree. I did not claim this to be possible for every environment.


-- 
Gino Thomas | mailto: g.thomas () nux-acid org | http://nux-acid.org
GPG: E6EA9145 | 4578 F871 893E 1FEC 31FC 5B5E 8A46 4CC8 E6EA 9145

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html


Current thread: